I'm still looking to buy one of these units and had a question that the salesperson at Tweeter couldn't answer.
I recently bought a Marantz SR7400 receiver. The initial setup of this unit had many menus that I had to go through. All sorts of stuff like getting the speaker and sub size correct as well as distances to the listening position.
I noticed in going through the Denon 2910 owners manual (now available online), that the SACD setup for this new DVD player has a very similiar menu. Curiously, there is nothing here about DVD-A setup.
What I'm wondering is, would the SACD setup be a moot point because the Marantz has already been set for the soundfield in my listening room? Would this setup probably apply to DVD-A as well?
The set-up for SACD and DVD-A in the Denon 2910 is totally independant of the receiver's set-up. The hi-rez formats work through the analogue connections between the universal player and the receiver (7.1 channels in on rear panel). These connections are not affected by the receiver's settings. Except as below.
In relation to hi rez formats or if using the universal player's DD and DTS decoders, the reciever (if anything like my Sr-7300) has loudness settings only for the 7.1 multi channel in (or analogue connections).
With the DVD-2900 the set-up for both DVD-A and SACD was in the DVD-A Multi-channel set up. I would imagine something similar for the 2910 model. The 2200 and 2900 did not have delay settings for SACD only bass management.
I'm a little confused here. So the receiver's settings only pertain to sources hooked up through the optical and coax digital inputs? Does this mean the audio that would come from the DVD player I currently have (a non-hi rez unit) would not be effected by the receiver's settings if I used straight interconnects to the L/R inputs on the back the SR7400?
"So the receiver's settings only pertain to sources hooked up through the optical and coax digital inputs?
Yes. With qualification, below.
Does this mean the audio that would come from the DVD player I currently have (a non-hi rez unit) would not be effected by the receiver's settings if I used straight interconnects to the L/R inputs on the back the SR7400?
Yes. With same qualification.
Qualification.
Speaker settings, "bass management", channel delays and so on, are all done with digital signal processing, so they are done before the conversion is made to analogue. So, yes, the receiver only does these things with the signal coming in through optical or co-axial digital input.
However, you can usually take an analogue stereo input, convert that to digital in the receiver, process that, then convert back to analogue. That is the way the receiver handles channels and so on with Prologic etc. In those cases, the receiver's channel settings also apply to the soudn with "straight interconnects".